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"So what makes an online class feel less like it's taught by a bot and more like it's a human-centered experience? The following three principles and related strategies will help faculty keep humans front-and-center of their online courses:"

Facillitators Guide to on line Learning

Thank you for sharing this-I am starting to look very closely at how education leaders make technology decisions and this resource looks very helpful.

"This Facilitator's Guide is based on What Education Leaders Should Know about Virtual Education, an online course designed by the Center on Instruction and the New England Comprehensive Center. The Facilitator's Guide demonstrates step-by-step how to build the course on a learning management system (LMS) and provides instructions on all phases of course implementation. "

The authors lay out four "pillars" of practice, conveniently chosen to form FLIP as an acronym: Flexible environment (Students are allowed a variety of modes of learning and means of assessment) Learning culture (Student-centered communities of inquiry rather than instructor-centered lecture) Intentional content (Basically this means placing content in the most appropriate context - direct instruction prior to class for individual use, video that's accessible to all students, etc.) Professional educator (Being a reflective, accessible instructor who collaborates with other educators and takes responsibility for perfecting one's craft)

"Use of in-class concept questions with clickers can transform an instructor-centered "transmissionist" environment to a more learner-centered constructivist classroom. To compare the effectiveness of three different approaches using clickers, pairs of similar questions were used to monitor student understanding in majors' and nonmajors' genetics courses. After answering the first question individually, students participated in peer discussion only, listened to an instructor explanation only, or engaged in peer discussion followed by instructor explanation, before answering a second question individually. Our results show that the combination of peer discussion followed by instructor explanation improved average student performance substantially when compared with either alone. When gains in learning were analyzed for three ability groups of students (weak, medium, and strong, based on overall clicker performance), all groups benefited most from the combination approach, suggesting that peer discussion and instructor explanation are synergistic in helping students. However, this analysis also revealed that, for the nonmajors, the gains of weak performers using the combination approach were only slightly better than their gains using instructor explanation alone. In contrast, the strong performers in both courses were not helped by the instructor-only approach, emphasizing the importance of peer discussion, even among top-performing students."

"But if technology and the ability to be connected disappear further into the background, what will occupy our foreground? A bit of the humanity we've always valued in the "real world." Legislators who are currently fixated on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education as the key to innovation will realize that STEM needs some STEAM-some art in the equation. We'll witness a return to the integrity of craft, the humanity of authorship, and the rebalancing of our virtual and physical spaces. We'll see a 21st-century renaissance in arts- and design-centered approaches to making things, where you-the individual-will take center stage in culture and commerce."

Innovation in the curricula, including experimentation with technologies and learning spaces, is most likely to be effective when driven by faculty and student needs and served by integrated support structures. Surveys of IU faculty and graduate students have identified spaces for scholarly community as a critical need. Collaboration across university services (technology, undergraduate education, libraries) delivers a more cohesive and comprehensive experience. The IU Bloomington Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning provides a mix of consultation and workshop spaces, instructional technology facilities, and relaxed forums for exchanging ideas.

The National Center for Technology Planning (NCTP) is a clearinghouse for the exchange of many types of information related to technology planning. This information may be: school technology plans available for downloading online; technology planning aids (checklists, brochures, sample planning forms, PR announcement forms); and/or electronic monographs on timely, selected topics. The NCTP was created for those who: need help, seek fresh ideas, or seek solutions to problems encountered with planning.

""Copyright for Librarians" (CFL) is an online open curriculum on copyright law that was developed jointly with Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society."

"As a former K-12 teacher and a current educator in higher education, I grappled with the idea of creating a Facebook account to communicate and become "friends" with my students. I was less concerned with using Twitter because of the difference between "following" and "friending." In my youth I was told by parents and teachers, "I'm not your friend." They said this to distinguish between the roles of friends and adults in the rearing of a child. An assumed level of respect was maintained between teacher-student and parent-teacher when such boundaries were made clear. Today's shift in learning environments to learner-centered classrooms thus raises these questions: Do educators now want to be friends with their students? Do students actually prefer not to be friends with their teachers?"

Like a superhero, the U.S. Library of Congress has just swooped in and unveiled an enormous new (and free!) resource that's all about the Common Core. It's located at http://www.loc.gov/teachers and worth checking out.

"CourseTalk is what you might expect - an early stage Yelp for MOOCs - a place for students to share their experiences with these courses and a way to discover new courses they'd enjoy. Given that it's still nascent, the platform's design is simple and its user experience is straightforward: Visitors can use the general search bar which is front and center, or peruse through "Top Rated," "Popular" and "Upcoming" verticals, or search by category, like Business, Computer Science, etc."

"The Pew Research Center"

Screencasts can provide learners a student-centered and engaging learning experience in both distance and traditional learning settings. To align screencasts with lesson objectives, goals, assessment practices, and standards, instructors can create their own screencasts rather than searching through the thousands of educational screencast videos on the web. Good educational screencasts depend not only on thorough planning but also on thoughtful and careful editing to re-sequence lesson elements, eliminate awkward and unnecessary portions, and craft a focused, easy-to-follow presentation that uses students' time efficiently.

The Amarillo Area Center for Advanced Learning in Texas is replacing textbooks with digital open educational resources (OER) for its math and science classes using iPads. The specialty high school in Texas recently implemented a 1:1 iPad initiative, and the OER pilot program is intended to help cut costs while providing students with access to high-quality, easily updatable learning resources on their iPads. The district selected a free, Web-based solution, Net Texts, to provide teachers with access to a library of more than 21,000 free OER learning resources from Curriki, Khan Academy, and several universities and colleges.

"This week, at the Google I/O 2013 conference, Google announced many exciting changes for various parts of it's platform.  The bulk of the upgrades this year centered around the Google+ platform… "

"As the demand for online education continues to increase, institutions are faced with developing process models for efficient, high-quality online course development. This paper describes a systems, team-based, approach that centers on an online instructional design theory (Active Mastery Learning) implemented at Colorado State University-Global Campus. CSU-Global Campus is a newly-created online campus within the Colorado State University System, and launches in Fall 2008 with fully-online undergraduate degree completion programs and Master's degrees."

"Last night, minutes before the Spurs demolished the Heat in Game 3 of the NBA finals, San Antonio's 10-year-old mariachi singer Sebastien De La Cruz offered a wonderful rendition of the National Anthem at AT&T Center. While he may be used to adoring audiences, as seen in last year's America's Got Talent, not everybody liked his performance - he was met with applause in the stadium and scorn on the internet. Apparently, other "Americans" were none too pleased that a "Mexican" was performing the national anthem, a privilege they only consider theirs."

THE SCHOOL DISTRICT of Philadelphia is getting into the cyber-school business this fall in an attempt to win back city students who attend cyber-charter schools, which cost the district more per pupil. The Philadelphia Virtual Academy, for kids in grades six through 12, would offer some real-life perks, such as a drop-in center where students can meet up with fellow students as well as a support team for each pupil. Every team includes a teacher and technical specialist.

"To, "moocify" k12, the connectivist opportunities need to come out in stages and be student centered with a humanistic focus.  Based on this information, I have suggested a, Continuum of Open Learning and an instructional design model, called the Open Classroom Model, for future consideration.  The next steps are demonstrating how K12 learning environments can be "MOOCified" by connecting, collaborating and creating."

One could say that the entire Educon conference is centered around Empathy, just in the way it is structured as a conversation instead of a sit-and-get conference.